31 January 2009

I’m also aware that Ignatieff didn’t want to govern in a coalition with socialists and separatists. It’s common knowledge that he was the Very Last Liberal™ to sign this all-important document. Give him a big round of applause, folks.

But seriously, while his apprehension was well-founded, Ignatieff ultimately signed the document. He may not have initiated the coalition, and his written consent was surely a case of taking one for the team.

But history will always show that he was a willing participant (of sorts) in a political coup d’état.

Iraqi officials say provincial elections Saturday in the country have ended without reports of major violence.

In a vote seen as a crucial test of Iraq's stability, voters picked representatives for 14 of the country's 18 local councils. More than 14,000 candidates sought 440 seats in Iraq's first provincial elections since 2005.

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BREAKING: Another Canadian casualty

Again, underlining the stark truth, that... "freedom isn't free".

Sapper Sean David Greenfield, 25, a combat engineer based in Petawawa, Ont., died when his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device, or IED, in the western reaches of Zhari district, about 35 kilometres west of Kandahar city.

Sapper Greenfield was a member of the 3rd Battalion, of the Royal Canadian Regiment battle group.

-- TORONTO -- Four marijuana growers were sentenced to 18 years in prison yesterday, only days after they directed police to the body of a rival which has lain at the bottom of Lake Ontario in a nylon luggage bag for more than four years.

Xu's badly decomposed body was found Tuesday by police divers. The body was enclosed in a dark nylon luggage bag, weighed down with two bags of cement, 100 metres west of the Island Airport ferry docks at the base of Bathurst St.

As of this week, Gmail has reached perfection: You no longer have to be online to read or write messages. To get offline access, you first need to download and install a small program called Google Gears (except if you're using Google's Chrome browser, which comes with Gears built in).

Then, after you enable Gmail's offline capability, the system will download two months of your most recent messages, which should take 30 minutes to an hour.

As Conservative MPs called for the national anthem to return to a rural New Brunswick school's morning rituals, the principal of the school says he is taking the matter to a human rights commission.

In a statement to CTV News Friday, Millett wrote "The only thing I really have to say at this point is that I have contacted the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission and I will be pursuing the question of accommodation around this issue of through the Human Rights Commission and hopefully some clarity will come from the ruling they provide."

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FROM THE COMMENTS:

"He's going to the HRC, the self same organizations that have been used to kill Canadian Culture? Me thinks they'll give him a medal for banning the National Athem."

“Trudeau said MPs are nobodies 50 yards off Parliament Hill. This guy wants to make us nobodies on Parliament Hill. It’s outrageous and he’s heading toward a mutiny in six to eight months, unless he’s high in the polls.”

Back when Neophyte was about 4 years old... and we lived in the Heart of Darkness that is downtown Toronto... Mrs Neo had occasion to take him along to a dental appointment in North York.

While Mrs N was lying in the chair, she happened to mention that we were looking to find a home out in the country. It was at that point that Neophyte cheerfully piped up and announced to all and sundry... "My daddy says Toronto is full of idiots."

Well... apparently it's not only Toronto.

Pelham's fire chief is fuming mad about a recent court decision in a case that involved a town firefighter being injured and a half-million-dollar home destroyed after it was set ablaze last year.

In a letter to Rick Bartolucci, Ontario minister of community safety and correctional services, Chief Scott McLeod outlined his frustration over an arson charge that ended up as a conviction for public mischief causing property damage, instead.

He said it sends a wrong message - arson is not a serious crime endangering lives but instead a simple property offence.

And we're not talking a shaky case that had to be knocked down for evidentiary reasons... they had these assholes dead-bang...

Firefighters found three sources for the blaze -construction paper at one site and a mix of paint thinners and wood stain at the other two on separate floors. Niagara Regional Police arrested two men on May 19 whom the fire chief was told admitted to setting the fires.

"As you can imagine, we had a sense of accomplishment regarding the day's work," said McLeod in his letter to the minister "and we felt that the case against the suspects left little room for legal manoeuvring."

McLeod said it's often difficult to prove arson because evidence such as fingerprints are lost as firefighters suppress flames.

Part of the evidence was paint on a finger of one man. A message was left in spilt paint at the site. With strong evidence, an injured firefighter, an apparent confession and timely charges, the fire chief thought it was "a bullet-proof case for the courts."

...about the Jehovah's Witnesses putting the kibosh on the national anthem... it kinda skips over that whole Green Party thing...

-- Upper Belleisle, N.B. -- School district superintendent Zoe Watson said the decision was made by principal Erik Millett after two parents complained about their children having to sing the anthem.

"Sometimes we have students whose parents, because of their beliefs, don't want their children to participate."

After seeing those pix of Lizzie May speaking at a Hezbollah rally... and hearing her infamous slur about Christian Crusaders... I wouldn't be surprised at anything the Greenies do...

But some in the community said that the decision may have been made because of Millett's personal beliefs. Millett ran for the Green Party in the last federal election and his website describes him as "actively involved in the peace movement."

Millett has not stated what exactly the parents complained about in regards to the anthem. Millett was not available for comment Thursday.

Hey Dawg... I bet your adoring public doesn't know you do impersonations...

"Of course, if there really were anti-anthem parents, they could have been told that the anthem is part of the school's program, and it was staying. Or they could have been told that they could exempt their own children from that three-minute exercise."

"Cancelling the entire thing -- based on mystery complaints that no-one else seems to have heard about -- is clearly the act of a rogue principal with his own agenda, not the result of any genuine parental concern."

And the coup de grace...

"How ironic: the fight-the-power punk rocker/amateur actor who idolizes anti-establishment rebels is now a low-level bureaucrat in a small school in a small town, who has become every bit the censorious petty tyrant he claims to despise."

I fear for my country.

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FROM THE COMMENTS:

"Perhaps the principal should focus on doing his job. Mr Millett's school is producing results under the provincial average and under his regions average."

In dismissing a complaint by Ottawa resident Nellie Hechme on Thursday, the Privacy Commission said it could not explain why a Bell Canada representative identified her last year at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal as the owner of an Internet account that was used to access stormfront.org under the pseudonym Jadewarr.

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FROM THE COMMENTS:

"I know the HRC charade has made a mockery of what constitutes evidence, due diligence and investigation, but this means that they accepted evidence that was not correct."

29 January 2009

We examine whether a relationship exists between juvenile delinquency and first names by answering a basic question: Are juveniles with unpopular names more or less likely to become juvenile delinquents?

We add to the literature on first names by finding, regardless of race, a positive correlation between unpopular first names and juvenile delinquency. The first names of juvenile delinquents do not represent a random sample of first names in the general population.

I've never really been able to figure out the contemporary and increasingly popular rationale... of saddling kids with "unique", or more to the point, bizarro names.

I mean, however cool it may sound on that pleasure-droid on Battlestar Galactica... the fact is, your kid has to be able to survive on Planet Playground.

A 10 percent increase in the popularity of a name is associated with a 3.7 percent decrease in the number of juvenile delinquents who have that name. Because unpopular names may signal an increased propensity to commit crime, this study provides additional insight (beyond that of a discrimination motive on the part of employers) as to why job applicants with unpopular names may be disadvantaged.

We show that unpopular names are associated with juveniles who live in nontraditional households, such as female-headed households or households without two parents. In addition, juvenile delinquents with unpopular names are more likely to reside in counties with lower socioeconomic status.

Now, the study itself delivers a few import caveats... but, my feeling is... why experiment on your children at all?

These two findings suggest that unpopular names may merely be correlated with omitted factors (disadvantage home environment) that affect the propensity toward juvenile delinquency rather than being the cause of juvenile delinquency. Nevertheless, if having an unpopular name constrains employment opportunities or negatively affects how others perceive one, it is possible that names could have a causal effect on crime.

This hypothesis is consistent with the findings of Twenge and Manis (1998). They control for family background characteristics by using a paired-siblings design and report: "First names and identity appear to go hand in hand, with first names explaining a small but significant part of the variance in the psychological adjustment of the individual."

"Who can take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?"Well, ah... that'd be infamous thug, Curtis John...

-- TORONTO -- John is being charged with attempted murder and several firearm related charges. But as it turns out, police are well aware of him - he's wanted for a large number of other offences.

Investigators believe he allowed his cousin to use his I.D. after his relative was allegedly involved in the murder of 20-year-old Dominic Shearer-Hanomansingh during the Jamaica Day festivities on July 26, 2008.

He's been charged with being an accessory after the fact in that case. His cousin has since been arrested. And that's not all. John is believed to have been involved in a robbery and assault on November 27, 2008.

C'mon... everybody now...

Love is all around, no need to waste itYou can have a town, why don't you take itYou're gonna make it after all

-- OTTAWA -- New Democrats have produced a series of scathing radio ads lambasting the Liberals for propping up Stephen Harper's minority Conservative government.

The ads claim Mr. Ignatieff has failed his first test as leader and has thrown in his lot with Mr. Harper; they argue that the NDP's Jack Layton is the only leader strong enough to stand up to the Prime Minister.

-- TORONTO -- An economic development agency for beleaguered southern Ontario will do little to create jobs and is likely to become an exercise in "pork-barrel politics," critics said -- Wednesday, despite Premier Dalton McGuinty's enthusiasm about his province's share of the federal budget.

"Regional development amounts to corporate welfare and the government is terrible at picking winners and losers in business," said Kevin Gaudet, Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

28 January 2009

By contrast, Mr. Ignatieff's move provoked outrage from New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton and Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe, who wanted the Liberals to defeat the government over the budget as early as next week.

Mr. Layton immediately slammed Mr. Ignatieff, saying the Liberals no longer had the right to claim to be the government-in-waiting. "We have a new coalition now on Parliament Hill. It's a coalition between Mr. Harper and Mr. Ignatieff."

Gee guys... Iggy's fresh off his own little coup d'etat... who could possibly have seen this sort of treachery comin' down the pike?

Politics 101, my socialist friends... "If they'll do it with you, they'll do it to you."

Mr. Duceppe said when the Liberals shared their budget-amendment proposal with him, he declared, "The coalition is dead, it's finished, it's over."

-- OTTAWA -- Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said his party is prepared to “swallow hard” and support the Conservative government, provided they agree to table regular updates outlining how they are living up to their commitments outlined in the federal budget.

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FROM THE COMMENTS:

"'Swallow hard'? Is that like 'Hurray hard', or do i just have my sports confused?"

...and Canadian Cynic lose their collective minds? Ask them to read today's Toronto Sun... (pls note... no names have been changed to protect the guilty).

Anyway, let's get right to it... "Remember when you were a kid and people settled arguments with two ton automobiles"?

-- TORONTO -- An apprentice electrician admitted yesterday he killed a teenaged kitchen cabinet painter by driving over him in his Ford Explorer in a dispute between two groups of men outside a bar.

Gagan Deep Singh, 26, pleaded guilty to criminal negligence causing the death of Mark Shaba, 19, of Rexdale, on Oct. 21, 2007, in a dispute in the parking lot of Arizona Bar and Grill on Carlingview Dr.

Yeah... me neither.

I've gotta confess... I don't get this whole "dissing" thing. Where exactly... and no, you can't put it all on Vin Diesel... does this stupid shit come from?

At what precise moment in time, did it become acceptable to mete out an extra-judicial death penalty... because somebody didn't agree with you?

Hamilton police say they have received new information from Toronto police that Gavin Storer of Hamilton was the likely target in an execution-style shooting that killed another Hamiltonian, Msemaji Granger, 24, as they left a 50 Cent rap concert at Ontario Place on July 1, 2003.

Storer is wanted by Hamilton police for first-degree murder in the brutal beating and shooting of Shaheen Sherzady, 23, on July 1, 2007.

Photosynth is a potent mixture of two independent breakthroughs: the ability to reconstruct the scene or object from a bunch of flat photographs, and the technology to bring that experience to virtually anyone over the Internet.

In his first formal interview - granted to an Arab television network - the American leader said his job is also to show Americans that people in the Muslim world simply want to live their lives and make better lives for their children.

Well Barack, I've gotta say that... as much as I agreed with the decision... pouring tens of thousands of American soldiers into Afghanistan might just be seen here as sending a mixed message.

...trying to make Stephen Harper look bad, but as a taxpayer... I only have one question about today's budget... "If this puppy doesn't actually fix all our economic problems, when do we get that 34 BILLION DOLLARS back?"

A $50,000 reward has been offered in the murder investigation of a young man gunned down on a North York street last year.

"It was a very cold, wintery night and the streets were mostly empty except for passing vehicles," Borg said. "It was only when a TTC employee on a passing TTC bus saw what he believed was a person laying lifeless on a sidewalk that anyone stopped to help Shawn McLean. By then, Shawn's fate had already been determined."

Later, as police began canvassing the area, they discovered nearby residents had heard more than one gunshot echo around the scene, but none bothered to report them to police.

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FROM THE COMMENTS:

"Now that Torontonians realize that there's no point in calling the police about gunfire, non-criminals should be allowed to have guns too."

-- OTTAWA -- Payments to Indian residential school survivors, meant to compensate them for mistreatment, have led to suicides, substance abuse and depression across the country, documents obtained by Canwest News Service show.

In British Columbia alone, according to a member of one survivors' group, two dozen deaths have been attributed to the payments.

The thing is... if stuff like yoga is on your "theatens my belief system" list... where exactly do you rank the rest of the many scary facets of the non-Islamic world?

Although the ruling is not legally binding, most devout Muslims are likely to adhere to it — as they consider it sinful to ignore a fatwa.

The Ulema Council decided on the ban, which follows a similar edict in neighbouring Malaysia, over concerns that the faith of Muslim yoga practitioners would be weakened if they take part in Hindu rituals like chanting mantras, Amin said.

“Those who perform yoga purely for health reasons or sport will not be affected,” Amin said.

“We only prohibit activities that can corrupt Islamic values.”

Yes, yes, Dawg... I know... I'm not supposed to talk about this stuff.

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FROM THE COMMENTS: Ask a compassionate lefty intellectual...Dawg... is that you?

25 January 2009

Opposition parties are threatening to vote down this week's much-anticipated Conservative budget because it contains a potentially contentious proposal to permanently slash taxes for middle-class Canadians.

Yeah... holy crap... who'd be in favour of that?

But hey... it gets better... "they stab it with their steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast"...

Meanwhile, NDP Leader Jack Layton said Sunday that he is still in talks with his Liberal counterpart, Michael Ignatieff, about toppling the Tories this week and installing an opposition government, which would be supported by the Bloc Quebecois.

"We have stayed in touch, and I think there is a fundamental desire for change and optimism," Layton told Question Period.

Sen. John McCain said he plans to vote against President Obama's economic stimulus plan, expressing frustration with a lack of bipartisanship in crafting the $825 billion package and leaving open the chance of a filibuster unless more tax breaks are included.

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FROM THE COMMENTS:

"We expect such idiocy from Jack Layton, but if Iggy's pretending to be a Canadian for a while, he's not doing a very good job of it."

A Toronto Police officer was shot in the head last night after a Beer Store robbery in which several people were threatened with a shotgun. The officers first on the scene tried to arrest one of the suspects when there was a confrontation that led to the shooting, police said.

Police nabbed one hiding in the backyard of a Campbell Ave. home but late last night were still searching for the second. Officers found several spent shotgun shells and some that hadn't been fired inside a sock along Rankin Cres.

Of course... it's not really that surprising... this is the reality of what Toronto has become.

The incident capped a week of brazen firearm violence -- including an incident in which two people were shot in a crowded Entertainment District nightclub early yesterday morning.

But hey... the important thing here... mediawise, anyway... is that nobody got tasered.

Funny how that works.

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FROM THE COMMENTS:

"Ah yes, let us look at two of the actual charges (one each per perp): 'Possession of a firearm contrary to a prohibition order'."

"Whether it's for religious or family value reasons, this is a public education system, it's secular and we're serving the public," he said. "Is it right or is it fair for children who are not allowed to sing the anthem to be forced to?

23 January 2009

Apparently, after weeks of angrily demanding to hear what the government is planning to do about the "financial crisis" they've been hysterically decrying... CTV has decided they don't want that information after all.

The Conservatives' decision to reveal budgetary measures before the document is officially released follows a precedent started by Paul Martin when he was Minister of Finance in the previous Liberal government, according to David Docherty, a political scientist at Wilfrid Laurier University.

Yesterday at work, the entire hospital was "dead" between 12 and 1 when Obama gave his speech. So many people interested. And when I kept working, people said to me: "aren't you afraid of missing history?".

The number of people walking around saying things about how the economy is now saved or how terrorism and Israel/Palestine will be solved, poverty, Health Care for all etc. etc.

There are a lot of people with hightened expectations that Obama will deliver on whatever they think their key issue is.

The thing is that US foreign and domestic policy is largely driven by multiple factors outside of the president's control. Mark my words, Obama is simply Bush III.

Sure Obama is half black, and that is historical. Except I don't place much emphasis on the "first" whatever, unless it is the very first person to do something significant.

But I did feel something yesterday, and that was this feeling similar I think to what perhaps some Roman citizens felt near the end of the Empire, when the crowd wanted "free" bread, when corruption ran unheeded, and when the Emperor was propped up by making outrageous promises and spending massive treasure for the crowds only to be dragged out into the streets months later by an angry mob.

Obama is going to spend trillions of dollars on corporate welfare programs and government programs. That is money the US doesn't have, and debt that GDP growth can no longer outgrow. He's doing it on the backs of children and future Americans. And so are we in Canada.

In 2004, George W. Bush continued dividing America with his divisive policies by divisively winning the election with 50.7 per cent of the vote. In 2008, Barack Obama united the entire world in a unifying spirit of unity by winning with 52.9 per cent of the vote.

That 2.2 per cent makes a massive difference, apparently. What the media actually means with all this talk of Obama uniting everybody is that a majority of voters finally supported the media’s candidate; you can feel the unity in every US newsroom, from the New York Times to the Chicago Tribune.

Whenever I had a few minutes today to surf the news, all I saw were articles about Obama Fever and the high expectations and how he is going to FIX EVERYTHING TOMORROW.

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FROM THE COMMENTS:

"Frankly I'd be much more suprised if France elected a Jewish leader, or Quebec elected anyone but some white francophone. Heck half the time I am suprised when Europeans elect a woman as leader considering the behaviour of many of the ones I have met while on my travels."

-- KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Construction is underway at a frenzied pace at the main NATO military base in Kandahar province to prepare for the extra U.S. soldiers deploying to the country in the coming months as part of U.S. President Barack Obama's troop surge.

Obama, inaugurated Tuesday as the 44th U.S. president, intends to add more than 20,000 U.S. troops to the ranks of some 34,000 American soldiers already in Afghanistan. The first wave is supposed to arrive this spring.

20 January 2009

Being out and about today... getting cars and computers back on their respective highways... I missed the most egregious moments of the all-too-predictable media slobberfest about this most miraculous of days.

And tonight, a mere 10 minutes of CTV gush-master Lloyd Robertson convinced me that I had indeed made the smart choice.

Strangely enough... the best line I've heard about the BIG DAY came from last nights Jon Stewart show... "Obama's inaugural speech is gonna make the "Gettysberg Address" look like a series of simian grunts."

I know it was supposed to be mocking the media freakout... but it captured the flavour of the day so perfectly.

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FROM THE COMMENTS:

"It was hard to avoid. Even the sports channels had it. Apparently, nothing happened at all in the world yesterday other than the coronation."

"Mr. Dziekanski, who did not speak English, spent more than 10 hours lost and disoriented before he began throwing around furniture, drawing the attention of police."

As long as we're having a long, drawn out taxpayer-funded inquiry... I wanna know... "How exactly does an unemployed, non-English speaking, middle-aged alcoholic with obvious mental health issues get to the front of the immigration queue?"

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FROM THE COMMENTS: The compassionate left responds...Well, my friend... how could anybody possibly argue with that impeccably reasoned thesis?

Those who were caught cheating were not just disqualified from the application process. Their names and identification numbers will now be placed on a database used by recruiters throughout the public sector.

An editorial in a state newspaper, the China Daily, suggested they had got off lightly.

It reminded its readers in that in imperial times cheats were executed.